


These Simple Breaths

by colberry



Category: the GazettE
Genre: Ambiguity, Aoiha and Angst are synonymous, Break Up, Dub-Con Kiss, Dysfunctional Relationships, Happy Endings Are For Chumps, M/M, What Really Happened - We'll Never Know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 18:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colberry/pseuds/colberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>#1:  "You break my world too easily."<br/>#2:  Tokyo isn't bright enough.  //  #2.5:  17 new messages.<br/>#3:  He had eyes just like yours.</p><p>Three moments when nothing went right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fuck,  I fucked it up

 

A million stars are exploding in his chest -- that feel of winter-pale against his cheek -- and Yuu is standing next to that damn phone, fingers itching;  
  
 _"I swear this is it, Yuu.  I fucking swear it."_  
  
But neither of them knew it would ache this much, that the pillow would feel so damp from bitter nights colliding with the moon and feeling nothing but static between the sheets.  
  
And this isn't what Kouyou expected when he told the elder:  _"I want to make this everything._ _"_  
  
But here they are, _nothing_ between their fingers and Yuu is dialing those empty digits, each push-tone snapping the strings that kept his heart together.  
  
Why --?  
  
 _"I think I do it because I love you too much."_  
  
The answer doesn't make sense and Yuu is sobbing on his knees, pouring out riffs of _why-can't-we-just-stop_ into the receiver and Kouyou is on the other line, tugging the cord and fighting the tantalizing urge to wrap the wires around his neck.  
  
 _I'll stop it all._  
  
His fingers tremble and suddenly Kouyou finds himself falling into Yuu's shoulders, and he catches those ebony locks and brings the silk-laden strands to his lips.  He murmurs quietly into Yuu's hair that maybe _he can try and fix this_  
  
 _and maybe -- just maybe --_  
  
Hot breaths are slick across the inky blackness of the man's tresses, the only place Kouyou can truly pour his ever-living-almost-dying-always-pleading heart out because it sometimes feels like he's whispering into an endless abyss.  And he likes to think he can hide here and pretend that Yuu isn't trying to tear himself away from his grip, from _this_.  
  
But when Yuu hoarsely says, _"You break my world too easily."_  
  
Kouyou almost collapses right there, almost breaks apart completely because _he didn't mean to_.  
  
 _"I didn't mean to -- not this time."_  
  
But his lips are no longer caressing that curtain of black, he's whispering Elizabethan tragedies into stagnant air and the whole world and every soul can hear him scream.  
  
 _"I didn't mean to --"_  
  
But the dial tone is shrieking in his ear and there's nothing more he can try to say.  
  
Because Yuu tore the phone from the wall.  
  
 _The number you are trying to reach is unavailable._


	2. The monsters are inside of us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tokyo isn't bright enough.

 

 

Kouyou isn't afraid of the dark.  
  
He isn't afraid of the inside of his empty sheets either -- _his hands do not shake, his breath does not tremble, and certainly his lips do not whisper his name._  
  
Nor the inside of his heart when Yuu disconnects his answering machine that first night.  
  
\-- _it's me again.  Just pick up, I know you're there; please --_  
  
Fear does not grasp him because light pollution has made the night sky of Tokyo so goddamn _bright_ that all the stars could hang from nooses and he'd still be able to see.  
  
&  
  
But it's when he's stuck in a nameless hotel room, adrenaline from live-glory leaking through his bones, and the silence of _emptiness_ crushing his lungs, does Kouyou ever feel the slight race of his heart.   
  
The navy sheets tangle themselves around his ankles when he tries to toss his spent body into a position that doesn't face the utter darkness that each corner emits.  And, _fuck_ , the room is so empty --  
  
\-- _without him._  
  
&  
  
It's afterwards.    
  
After the live -- _a total of two days to wipe his eyes clean of agony before limelight slaps his face --_ and after the soft murmur of Takanori as they sweat backstage:  
  
 _Doesn't something seem different tonight?  Something's different._  
  
Yutaka shrugs, fingers gripping a broken drumstick tight because he agrees but can see how Kouyou's shoulders stiffen -- how Yuu's eyes become burning ice.  
  
And Akira gives a noncommittal grunt and complains about his gnawing stomach instead -- because he can feel Kouyou start to lower his head behind him, start to break in two and, _dammit how can Takanori not **see it**?_  
  
&  
  
Everyone politely averts their eyes as Yuu opts to room with Yutaka.  
  
The silence that envelopes the common-room is eroding Kouyou's heart.  His eyes oddly sting when Yutaka smiles with a question in his gaze, briefly glancing at the younger guitarist in this cringing moment of ' _this isn't right'._   And in a second less than infinity, Yuu is passing through the door -- away, away.  His palms start to become cold and moist because maybe _this was real_.  
  
 _I swear this is it._  
  
Maybe this is it.  
  
&  
  
"Fuck, Kou -- just _once_ would I like to not share a room with Mr. Gorilla Arms.  I swear, for being a midget, the kid just ends up strangling me in his sleep one way or another."  
  
Kouyou watches Akira fume with an uneasy smirk -- his stomach is still quivering, apprehensive of _sweet dreams_ \-- and lets his head fall against the wall he's sitting near in the common-room, "Don't you guys have separate beds?"  
  
 _Distraction, distraction._  
  
Akira rolls his eyes and Kouyou takes the time to appreciate the man's unburdened face, noseband discarded, leaving the bassist to grant the guitarist an unfiltered, magnificent snort, "Doesn't matter.  _Sleep-walking_ , he says.  Sticks to me like glue, that's what he does, the little monster."  
  
 _Akira knows and he'll gladly distract the other until eternity collapses because --_  
  
Kouyou fiddles with the loose threads of his jeans, fingers poking and pulling at the frays of the ripped knee, and tries to concentrate on Akira's rant.  Anything to forget that he'll be facing the headboard -- _this existence_ \-- alone.  His eyes must have looked distant, he must have looked _so small_ , because the elder man hesitates in his pacing and softens his voice, "Hey, you okay?"  
  
Jerked out of his thoughts, Kouyou snaps his head up and simultaneously tugs too hard at the fray on his knee.  He rips the shredded fabric clean open.  "M'fine."  
  
He attempts to magically weave the pieces back together, but he's left with the pale flesh of his knee staring up at him.  Kouyou knows it's unfixable, yet he keeps pinching the strands side by side -- _pinch-pinch-tug-weave_ until Akira's fingers halt his own.  
  
The world tilts just a tad and Kouyou has to grab hold of his breath as he catches Akira's concerned gaze.   
  
A light pressure squeezes his fingers before Akira pulls his hand away and runs it through his bleached locks.  His eyes bounce across the room, over the strewn wrappers, the guitar cases, the burnt-out cigarettes before he comes to rest on Kouyou's crumpled form on the floor.  
  
And suddenly, they're ten again as Akira quirks his lips into a light smile, one so beautifully pained that Kouyou thinks he might feel his ribs weeping, and knowingly mutters, "I won't lock the door tonight."  
  
Kouyou sputters, indignant and failing to hide the redness that seeps into his cheeks with a frown, "I'm not _scared_ , Akira."  _Don't be stupid._   He can't meet the bassist's eyes.  Something's cracking in his chest.  He turns his head away sharply to the side because everything's becoming blurry and _dammit, he can be stronger than this right?  
  
"I don't need him."_  
  
And for the guitarist's sake, Akira pretends the other man hasn't just spilled _everything_ onto the tiled floor, hasn't confirmed what he already knew.  He doesn't make comment, merely grasps Kouyou's thin wrist and hauls him to his feet --   
  
\-- _because his hand is too used to fitting into the younger's palm, so callused from gripping Kou's so tight all these years,_ _to let him go now._  
  
&&  
  
It's 3:26 in the morning when Akira hears a shuffling of feet beside his bed.  Immediately, he curses all that is holy that he has to stave off another Takanori-Snuggle-of-Death for a _third_ time tonight, but his groggy brain catches a slight stutter of breath that could only belong to --  
  
Akira opens his red-smacked eyes as he feels a tall shadow loom over him.  A blurred silhouette is all he needs to deduce the anxious presence of Kouyou.  The younger man shifts from one foot to the other, decked out in boxers, a nightshirt and a case of frazzled bed-head, and nibbles at his lower lip in uncertainty.    
  
Both are still for a moment before Kouyou whispers brokenly, _"Yuu's door was locked, 'kira."  
_  
 _This is real._  
  
Akira ignores the deafening ache in his heart and merely scoots over and lifts the covers to where Kouyou dashes inside as if the floor were bearing hot coals.  The taller man buries his face into the junction between the pillow and Akira's shoulder.  He bites his lip to stifle the sob that's begging in the cavity of his chest.  
  
 _Tokyo isn't bright enough._  
  
Callused fingers sift through his knotted locks, careful not to tug and Kouyou can't hold back the tears from such gentleness.  
  
 _"Shh, don't cry.  Don't let him make you cry."  
  
_ Kouyou shuts his eyes even tighter, buries his face further into Akira's shoulder until his nose almost crunches under the pressure.  His hand finds Akira's chest and he clutches the fabric with white knuckles because --   
  
_"I made him cry first."_


	3. This gold is fading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seventeen new messages.

 

 

When Yuu reconnects his answering machine, lets those circuits gasp at forgotten oxygen, red blinks at him urgently.  
  
 _17 new messages._  
 __  
17 more pleas.  
  
 _17,000 reasons to forgive him._  
  
His hands are shaking again and suddenly the device is crumbled and cracked.  Gears are ticking aimlessly, shrapnel quivers upon his linoleum floor and Yuu's fingers are bleeding.  Red is drowning him, chasing him.  He grits his teeth and slams his fists into the dry wall because _damn it all, he thought rocks stars were supposed to be invincible, untouchable -- unbreakable._  
  
His knuckles ache, but he wants his bones to splinter and disintegrate because then he'll have a reason why he's collapsing.  
  
&  
  
Kouyou doesn't say anything when he sees the bandages on his hands.  
  
He still doesn't utter a word when Yuu slips up on a chord, a hiss breaking through his teeth.  
  
He's silent when the elder man grabs the roots of his hair, eyes nailed shut while his guitar hangs limp from his neck.  
  
But when Yuu snaps the strings, tears the fiberglass apart, _eyes caged and wet_ , he almost chokes out a yell --  
  
 _"Wait -- !"_  
  
\-- But Yuu is already gone.  
  
&  
  
He throws away his coffee mug.  It's the blue one Kouyou had always stolen sips from and when he presses his lips to the ceramic, he can _taste him._   And Yuu doesn't want to remember.  
  
Forgetting would be so much easier.  
  
 _Hating him would be so much easier._  
  
But his heart has no other metronome.  
  
&  
  
Takanori doesn't think much when he's asked to accompany Yuu to a local drinking hole.  The vocalist barely pays attention to the warble in Yuu's voice over the phone, doesn't think to imagine the elder man's nails digging into the receiver with all his will not to fracture.  He only pays heed to picking out the perfect pair of dark-wash jeans, the precise lyric to scribble down beforehand, and the whisper of cologne on his collarbone.  
  
The same collarbone Yuu nuzzles against in a drunken slur of ' _just-stay-like-this-please-please_ ' as the guitarist's still-bandaged fingers wander to the hem of his shirt.  And Takanori has to pause and take notice, has to grip Yuu's wrists and hear him snivel from pressure on tender skin, from everything else that is leaving shards of broken-hope in his ribcage --  
  
 _"What the fuck are you doing."  
  
_ Yuu's eyes are glazed when they find the younger man's.  Takanori can see black bruises under his mahogany irises, lips chapped from embracing cigarettes two-at-a-time, and the way his head lolls to the side in a sickening guise of innocence.  
  
 _"Anything to make it stop."  
  
_ He leans in closer, savoring this new warmth.  He's so fucking cold, the ice of empty sheets still sticking to his skin.  He wants to claw it off, tear it open and slather his body, his heart, across Kouyou's.  He wants to hate him.  He wants to hate-hate-love until he suffocates on paradoxes and rips out every promise he's made to _move on._  
  
And he knows the short, brunette man he's suddenly straddling isn't _him_ , but Yuu still lowers his head to try and catch Takanori's unwilling lips.  He wants warmth, wants to fill this emptiness with something, anything.  
  
Takanori leans back, eyes wide with comprehension, watching how Yuu's eyes are shimmering in the darkness of the bar.  Red light from a neon sign proclaiming " _OPEN_ " blisters across their skin, making their teeth glisten.  He grasps at the guitarist's arms, ignoring the soft pleas that fall from drunken lips, from his own heart to _just take it, it's something, it's anything, it's what you always --_  
  
Yuu feels Takanori's lithe fingers clutch his biceps tight and anger laps at his soul.  
  
 _"Fuck, Yuu, stop.  You can't do this."  
  
_ But Yuu presses his mouth against the vocalist's, bites the lip hard, eyes blurred from searing hatred that _he still feels his heart._   Because _why_ **not**?  
  
I've already lost everything.  
  
Takanori's lips are full, plush and taste like blood; they're different.  And Yuu can't help but choke out a strangled sob that he can't feel that familiar bowed maw beneath him.  
  
Their breaths mingle, both choking on oxygen.  Takanori can feel that bottom lip slide to the corner of his mouth, a soft pant that may be a whimper fans across his skin and he buries his fingernails into Yuu's arms harder.  The younger man roughly jerks his head away, eyes wild and blazing  as he feels scarlet slithering down to his chin.  
  
And Yuu can feel himself being pushed away, he can feel his back hit the corner of the booth.  He can hear something shatter.  
  
Takanori exhales loudly, touching his abused lip tentatively before eyeing the man across from him who's white-gauzed hand is fisting the fabric over his heart.  He tries not to let the tragic-poet in him imagine the guitarist's hand dappled in vermillion regret from the organ he knows is bleeding.  Takanori, instead, sputters:  
  
 _"What the **hell** did he do?"  
  
_ And Yuu can't look up.  His head hurts, his sheets are empty and he misses his blue mug.  
  
 _"Yuu, what did he **do**?"  
  
_ He has three new holes in his wall, his knuckles are throbbing and he needs a new answering machine.  
  
 _"Yuu --"_  
  
He misses him, he misses him, he misses him.


	4. There will be no miracles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had eyes just like yours.

 

 

These floorboards are cracking.  Knotholes are breaking off and spreading, swallowing Kouyou's toes when he finds himself pacing back and forth -- it's been two weeks.  
  
A lovely anesthesia has settled in his bones.  It lets him pretend he's warm despite the reality of his translucent skin and jutting ribs.  His thumb has traced over the lip of the vodka bottle more than once, but he finds that the small comfort in sliding his skin across something _tangible_ and _here_ is all he needs.  
  
He lets his knees give out.  
  
He kisses the sawdust lips beneath his feet and waits for the numbness to return.  
  
Because his heart is waking up again.  
  
&  
  
He hears silence when he should hear music.  
  
Kouyou licks his chapped lips, the dry flesh crackling as he plucks random strings of his guitar.  The blisters upon his fingertips pulse, but his knees are becoming weak and his ambition is just too bright _to stop now --  
  
\-- if he stops now, he'll remember, and if he remembers --_  
  
He doesn't hear the door open.  Kouyou keeps his head down, watches his limp hair tangle with his eyelashes.  He watches himself  drown in this blond darkness.  Maybe he'll just rest here, forget his phone is cold and his answering machine is empty, and left himself drift  with his fingers buried in these strings.    
  
"Uruha?"  
  
It's not his name.  The precious kanji is meaningless to his history.  Uruha is a complicated beauty.  Kouyou is a simple wreck.  But slender fingers that are dappled by their own copper-string-scars cover his shaking digits, still attempting to form twisted melodies and shrieking riffs that could maybe hide his own screams in those late nights of _what the fuck are we doing here --_  
  
And suddenly Yuu is in front of him.  So roughly thrown back into his world -- a reckless comet knocking into his orbit.  But this isn't space -- yet Kouyou thinks that his lungs may burst from lack of oxygen, thinks his galaxy might be imploding, all the same.  
  
The elder is kneeling on the floor, taking back his hands from their grasp upon him ( _like he couldn't wait any longer, magnetic spitfire drawing him close_ ).  Kouyou's long bangs flutter to the side and his eyes instinctually find Yuu's.  Ebony to sepia.    
  
He sees purple smudges underneath the dark-haired man's sockets.  He sees pallid skin.  He sees regret.  
  
 _We're too late._  
  
" _Kouyou._ "  The name feels hesitant and bitter in the air, like Yuu isn't sure whether or not he's still allowed to call him that.  It scares the younger man when he doesn't know either.  
  
The night sky drifting in from his window casts shadows upon Yuu's face, endlessly shifting as the rhythm guitarist parts his lips in the futile attempt to _mend_.    
  
And Kouyou is still.  His heart may have combusted already -- he doesn't have anything left; not for this beautiful, grotesque creature that is gazing unto him with midnight eyes.  The blond's hands tremble, his guitar emitting warbled pants, and he forces himself to breathe out the words before Yuu climbs back into his ribcage and clutches the remains of his heart.  
  
 _"You never called."_  
  
Yuu breathes in sharply as if the whimpered words were steel knives in his chest, biting the inside of his cheek to stave off a hoarse cry of self-loathing.  But he leans in closer, not afraid if everything shatters and Kouyou runs away, leaves forever, tears his soul apart.  
  
Because everything is already in pieces.  
  
And when he leans in, Kouyou grits his teeth.  
  
He doesn't smell like _Yuu_ anymore -- sandalwood, vanilla and _home_ \-- he smells like Aoi, the deity that graces the stage and throws his head back as ecstasy nips at the hollow in his neck.  Kouyou can feel it.  The alcohol and cheap nights and black agony licking across the elder's skin.  He can almost hear Yuu's wretched pleas for the stranger in the alley who he throws up against the brick wall to _look at me, you have eyes just like his._  
  
Kouyou covers his mouth with a shaking hand, shoulders stiffening as he shudders out a dry heave.  It's dirty and wrong and _fuck, he understands why even though he shouldn't, but it's all his fault anyway because he was the one who --_  
Yuu's hands immediately encircle him, a wet exhale escaping the elder's quivering lips.  Feeble whispers touch his ear, _"I broke us, I broke us"_ , and Kouyou wants to answer him.  
  
 _Then I'll fix us, okay?  I just need to find the pieces.  
  
_ But the bile is still resting in his throat and the pathetic wetness in his eyes is staining Yuu's skeleton-fingers and _he can't lie anymore._  
  
They don't have enough pieces of themselves to fit back together.  
  
His cheeks are cold with clear rivulets, and Kouyou can feel a helpless whine start to burn its way to his lips.  But then those fingers are sifting through his damp tresses ( _newly bleached, newly ruined_ ) like they know where they _are_ on these rotten floorboards.  
  
Like they're okay even though they're royally fucked and twisted and raw.  
  
Kouyou looks up; the hand briefly slides to his forehead.  Almost to his eyes as if to cover the mahogany irises and protect the young guitarist from this world where they must starve-for-glory, where he exists, where he has the scent of a stranger's kiss upon his maw.  
  
 _"I didn't mean to."_  
  
 _The phone was in my hand.  
  
He had eyes just like yours.  
  
_Aoi's -- _Yuu's_ \-- deft fingers return to their place in his burnt-blond hair.  He can almost remember _this feeling_ as he sits in Yuu's embrace.    
  
 _I just missed you._  
  
The old, brown scarf he bestowed to the older man last month scratches against his neck and he watches their shadows warp in the moonlight upon his floor.  Kouyou can feel each inhale of Yuu's lungs.  
  
And when Yuu cradles his head and pulls him to his chest, Kouyou can hear Yuu's heart.


End file.
